We all want to get a lot of traffic going to our blogs. It’s common sense right? Good traffic brings more readers/subscribers, which brings in more money. The problem with it is that most of us don’t work hard enough in converting that traffic into a repeat traffic. In other terms, turning new visitors into loyal readers.
In my not so recent post, I claimed that most bloggers fail doing this thing called “marketing.” What I see is that most bloggers just try to get as much traffic as possible without really considering the quality. Sometimes they even prefer the quantity, surprisingly.
The Relationship Between Pageviews and Good Marketing is Not Linear
Bloggers completely have this misconception that amount of traffic they drive to their blog is directly proportional to whether they’re marketing well or not. It’s definitely not true. I mean I can get 1,000 unique hits per day purchasing PTC traffic but does that mean it’s a good marketing tactic? No.
The determining factor for the success of it is the conversion rate, and that depends on your goals (which you do have, right?).
Has the guest post I wrote on somebody else’s blog brought in more subscribers to MY blog? Will that exposure I get on a blogging discussion forum stick around for a few days? Maybe a few weeks? Questions can be endless but it all starts with setting your conversion goal. May it be signing up to your newsletter, leaving a comment or anything else.
The one aspect that separates good bloggers from bloggers who hardly get any traffic is the ability to market and promote competently. And alongside competent marketing is testing and tweaking. A good example is writing guest posts. Most bloggers just stop there. What do you do after that? That’s a question many cannot answer well.
Did it convert? Did I see an increase in subscribers? Did they sign up for my newsletter? Distinguishing what works from what doesn’t is a key factor in determining whether something is worth doing or not.
Repeat Traffic: The Only Traffic that Makes Sense
I’m sure I will get some flak for saying this but all traffic outside repeat traffic doesn’t really count. What’s the goal of having people visit your site if they’re not gonna be back again?
When it comes to sales, it’s like figuring out what the point of giving out freebies if not everyone who accepted your offer will come back. In every aspect of blogging and business, loyalty is a huge factor. Big bloggers aren’t big just because they get XXXXX amount of daily traffic. They’re big because they have a huge fan base of loyal readers.
A simple tactic I’d like to observe in determining this is the use of Google Analytics. I’ll admit that I’m a stat-junkie in the sense that I spend almost all of my night life checking what the logs says, coming up with my own conclusion and taking down notes. They always say the number speaks for itself and its a popular saying for a reason.
Here are some of my findings.
The Direct Traffic Pie Chart
The more direct traffic you have, the more readers you have who are probably more loyal. In case you don’t know, direct traffic is the traffic that comes from people who directly type your URL in their browser. So it’s a clear indication that number is all the traffic from your loyal readers.
Direct Traffic Stats and New Visits %
Bounce Rate
Now we have bounce rate. It basically shows how many people leave your site and how quickly. The lower the number, the better. With bounce rate you can actually track whether your guest post on other blogs went on successfully or not as I’ve said above. It was inferred that the average bounce rate for a site is 40-65%. If that’s the case, then I’m doing alright!
Final Words
To end this lengthy article, I’d like to ask you to evaluate your own marketing strategy and whether it’s getting you QUALITY traffic or not. Remember, that conversion is what everything online is all about.
By focusing on converting visitors based on your own blog’s goal, you’re having a more concise and competent way of blog marketing and promotion. And yes, it’s better to get 10 visitors a day who will actually read your blog and even buy something than getting 100 who will just click away in a few seconds.
The Discussion
Leave a Comment Read Again?Hey Melvin,
Super-awesome post Melvin. I Love this “it’s better to get 10 visitors a day who will actually read your blog and even buy something than getting 100 who will just click away in a few seconds”. Awesome point man. Good Stuff.
Thanks for sharing this great Post man.
~Dev
.-= Dev | Technshare´s last blog ..Technshare Monthly Report 3: May 2010 =-.
Hey Dev,
thanks for liking this post. That’s really a bad misconception with most bloggers and i hope they start understanding that quality is always better than quantity.
.-= Melvin´s last blog ..How I (Literally) Doubled My Blog Advertising Income =-.
Hi Melvin,
Great post. With regards to bounce rate – GetClicky (an alternative stats package to GA) records bounce in a different way – if someone views one page and stays on that page for less than 30 seconds, that is a bounce. If they stay on longer than 30 seconds, it is not a bounce. This, to me, seems a much more accurate way of tracking bounce rate. My own figures differ greatly between the data from GA and GC.
.-= Stephen TBA´s last blog ..How to deal with WordPress comment spam =-.
Ow thanks for that heads up Stephen.
I actually had an account with GetClicky but never used it (seems strange why). I would use that and let you know my findings.
.-= Melvin´s last blog ..MelvinBlog’s Best Blog Marketing Tip Contest =-.
Great post.
The section at the bottom about bounce rates is really important when determining how effective your marketing approach has been. However good your content is though, bounce rates can really be messed up with poor site efficiency such as load times as well. If this is the case then getting repeat traffic is going to be a real challenge.
I agree Adie. Actually my blog is one of the slowest loading blogs before and uhm, if not for my readers shooting me PM’s, I would’ve not known that some scripts are slowing my site so badly.
Repeat traffic is really a tough challenge but once you get then it’s really worth it I must say.
.-= Melvin´s last blog ..How I (Literally) Doubled My Blog Advertising Income =-.
Really great post and I agree with Dev here.
Repeat visitors are the one that will trust you, see you as an expert and buy your products.
It is not how far but How well
Thanks a lot for the great post,
-Onibalusi
Hey Onibalusi, thats a great quote! Glad you like this post.
.-= Melvin´s last blog ..MelvinBlog’s Best Blog Marketing Tip Contest =-.
So true. I was just looking at an old post of mine, which started out with a quote about “marketing gone wild, reach 70 million people on Facebook.” Just because it’s a lot of people doesn’t mean they’re the right people. An audience of 20 million teenagers won’t help you sell denture adhesive.
Agree on this article. The toughest thing however is to make them return. The challenge I am facing at the moment.
.-= Edward Nigma´s last blog ..Lisa Kudrow – Piquant Flavor Of Friends =-.
Hey Melvin,
Great Post. I agree.
Targeted traffic is where it’s all at!
I have also seen people selling traffic. I agree with you, that it is just not worth it!
I wanted to point out something here:
“In case you don’t know, direct traffic is the traffic that comes from people who directly type your URL in their browser.”
People who click on your email signature (with a link to your blog/website) will also be treated by Google Analytics as direct traffic.
Awesome tips there, especially for a new webmaster like me who never ever use google analytics, once i signed in, i was so confused because i had lots of options lol
.-= Kimi´s last blog ..Good blog titles or names =-.
Hey Melvin, great post. I do agree that the only thing that really matters is the return traffic, however I do see a point in having traffic period when you are starting out so that even if someone doesn’t actively do or purchase something that time, they might mention that they saw your site to a friend if there happens to be something that catches their eye while they were there.
Having your site make an impression on any visitor, returning or new, would seem to be a good golden rule to follow.
Keep the great stuff comin man!
.-= Brandon´s last blog ..31 Affiliates Creating and Promoting Super Affiliate Products =-.
I also think that giving your readers something to look forward to can let you gain much repeat traffic. You can create series, and make updates about upcoming projects you may have.
.-= Julius´s last blog ..What Can a Musical Genius Teach Us About Accessibility? =-.
Thanks so much for the post. I feel like I need to carve out some time to go through and re-read it as well as many of the articles you linked as well! This info. really helps – much appreciated!
“I’m sure I will get some flak for saying this but all traffic outside repeat traffic doesn’t really count. What’s the goal of having people visit your site if they’re not gonna be back again?”
Melvin, Melvin, Melvin, how the heck is someone gonna find out about a blog unless they visit the first time? Also, in our niche, new visitors are what makes us pay the bills. Frankly, we thrive on new visitors more than repeat visitors. I guess it all depends on the niche.
Having said this, I can also see your point. The goal should be to keep folks coming back.
Hahaha, Im surprised it has taken this long before someone pointed that out, lols. But anyways you’re right, it all starts with new visitor. What i like to point out is that most new visitors remain as new visitors and blogger should never be contented in that.
I dont know what you mean by saying that “we thrive on new visitors more than repeat visitors” but at least for me I believe those repeat visitors are the ones that are more valuable
Melvin,
I believe Colleen meant that many of her successful real estate transactions involve only one blog visit. After that first contact the customer enters the sales funnel and never returns to the blog.
It is important to remember that not all niches and websites have the same goals.
Good points overall about not treated all traffic equally. I was listening to Clay Collins this week in a webinar talking about a list of 10 highly qualified prospects being sufficient for a $8000 launch when his product was $4000/each.
Great post man!
Repeat traffic is generally the traffic that your site and affiliate campaigns actually benefit from. Those one-time visitors are pretty much just that… one time visitors. Haha
CJ
CJ’s last blog ..You’ve Gotta Meet This Guy! Be Prepared
Nice post, and if you have a nice amount of repeat traffic then sure it’s gonna be helpful in many ways. They will support you all the time..
But I want to say here one thing, The conclusion you made from the Google Analytics stats can’t be considered absolutely correct. Because not all the repeat traffic(loyal readers) falls in the direct traffic section. Some of them also visits your blog regularly through other sources and are counted in referring traffic part i.e. those who comes from feedburner rss feeds and emails.
oops..!! If possible, Alex, please change the email ID in the above comment as my gravatar is not appearing since I missed a ‘b’ in my email id. so please correct it and you can delete this comment.
Well done Melvin man, very well done.
You’ve struck another old adage – - “It is easier to keep repeat customers then it is to constantly search out new ones.”
being in direct sales my whole life, that’s one of my fvorites; the truth in it is unmatched.
Of course, you can replace “customers” with, readers, subscribers, whatever, it remains the same.
I really love your last sentence! You are absolutely right! I think blogger will prefer the visitor to read his article rather than when reach just click to leave from here. You have reminded me to do the traffic analysis for my blog. Thanks for your sharing!
It’s really like repeat business for companies. The cost of acquiring new people is always the most expensive but once you have them in the fold, it’s easier to retain and the stronger your blog (brand) becomes.
Repeated traffics means your content is good, and I’m sure that search engine will loves it because they know that people likes your site.
While you do have a good point.
What you are actually trying to say is that the quality of the visitors matter. This is entirely true.
But you can’t say repeat traffic is the only traffic worth considering.
Just my opinion.
Keep up the good work !
“But you can’t say repeat traffic is the only traffic worth considering.”
I very agree with you
Other valuable information from Google Analytics comes from the search engine statistics. You will see the exact terms people used to find your site. Not only will this give you ideas you may not have considered, but it will also help you see where you have an opportunity to own the ranking for a term. (If you are already being found for a keyword phrase without trying, imagine if you actually tried.
)
Of course, you should qualify the keyword and searcher before you modify your campaigns, but I find the information very valuable.
Great post Kabayan!
I agree with you there. Repeat traffic means they trust you or your site and that they really like the content you put up.
Great post…the bounce rate is very important factor…you can minimize the bounce rate by having only unique and relevant content…if landing page has good quality content then it will definitely reduce the bounce rate.
Good points, it’s all about monetizing the traffic you already have and make it convert as much as possible through your different funnels and strengthen the relationship, trust and know factor with them. If you can do that effectively you can always drive this same traffic back to your websites anytime by having them opt-in to your list and follow up there, it’s the best kind of traffic you can get
this is really an enlightening post. the fact that i was so caught up in trying to generate traffic that i forgot the utmost value of having loyal readers.
has it got to do with affiliate marketing? i started out with affiliate marketing and generally i do what it takes to generate traffic to my affiliate links to increase the sale. now that i have just started my own blog, i might kinda have rinse and repeat such concept towards my blog which in your post i figure out its best not to work that way..
time to mode switch and work on getting my blog done right
=)
great post!
Excellent Post Melvin
I love this blog and taking the lessons and reading a lot but I’ve only been doing this for four months. I think I’ve learned a lot but I always have questions and don’t know where to go. I have been trying to learn about GA and find the help there is hard to navigate the way they have it set up. I got on the forum twice and have to say I encountered a couple of moderators who were rather pompous. That’s the nice way of putting it. Is there a place besides google to learn about reading the statistics?
is that applies to blogs with adsense.in my opinion this applies only for affiliate blogs.
repeat traffic is describe if visitors are interested in our blog
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Business need to know these things, amongst many other topics. You may want to You want to ensure that the techniques you use to get repeat traffic are appropriate for your target market.
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